tion of our coming generations of children are to be made more effective, practical, and economic in the outlay of time and effort involved, the reconstruction must take place on a sound physiological and psychological basis. The plans for development must be in accordance with the best knowledge of hygiene and sanitation that can be developt. The working out of the details of any improved educational methods must be the joint work of the teacher as the expert on pedagogy and the doctor as the expert on physiology and hygiene. As our knowledge increases and as physicians become broader in their viewpoint and less dogmatic in their attitude, the physician both as an individual and as a class must revert more and more to the old position of the doctor as a teacher, while the teacher, becoming more and more familiar with the physical and mental characteristics and limitations of his pupils and with the dependence of the mental and the psychic on the physical and material, must necessarily become more familiar with the facts and conclusions of modern scientific medicine.

I take it then that the net results of the war, in so far as its immediate effects on the two professions represented in this conference and on the joint committee are concerned, will be to broaden and stimulate our interest in each other and to draw together and coordinate the work of the two professions. It is therefore more important than ever that this joint committee, the link between the two organized professions, be retained, be made as strong and as representative as possible, and be afforded every facility and opportunity for carrying on its work, which is to be of such importance and which promises so much for the future.

The Department of Kindergarten Education of the National Education Association convened in regular session on Monday afternoon, June 30, 1919, at 2:00 o'clock, in Juneau Hall, Auditorium, Milwaukee, Wis. The meeting was called to order by Ella Ruth Boyce, president.

In the absence of the secretary the president appointed the vice-president, Edna D. Baker, as secretary pro tem.

The general topic for the meeting was "The Kindergarten Curriculum as Modified by Modern Educational Thought," and the following program was presented:

"Presentation of Subject"-Nina C. Vandewalker, director, kindergarten department, State Normal School, Milwaukee, Wis.

Ill.

"Subject-Matter of the Curriculum"-Alice Temple, University of Chicago, Chicago, "Language in the Kindergarten from the Primary Standpoint"-Florence C. Fox, specialist in educational systems, Bureau of Education, Washington, D.C.

The following officers were elected for the ensuing year:

President-Nina C. Vandewalker, director, kindergarten department, State Normal School, Milwaukee, Wis.

Vice-President-Margaret McIntyre, supervisor of kindergartens, Cambridge, Mass. Secretary Julia Bothwell, supervisor of kindergartens, Cincinnati, Ohio.

A motion was past authorizing the incoming board of the Department of Kindergarten Education to appoint a committee to cooperate with a committee from the National Council of Primary Education for the working out of common problems.

EDNA D. BAKER

Secretary pro tem

PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS

THE KINDERGARTEN CURRICULUM AS MODIFIED BY MODERN EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT

NINA C. VANDEWALKER, DIRECTOR, KINDERGARTEN DEPARTMENT, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE, WIS.

The curriculum of the kindergarten is its working scheme, the organization of its procedure in such a manner that the kindergarten comception of education-the directing of children's activities and interests-may be carried out. Since these needs and interests vary with the age and type of children, their home training, and their environment, and since.

they can be known only through observation, a true curriculum cannot be static-workt out for once and all and followed forever after, whatever the conditions. It should be instead an organization on the spot, a selecting from day to day on the basis of the children's observed needs of the specific instrumentalities by which their needs can be best met. true kindergartner therefore creates her curriculum as she proceeds. Her work will be successful in proportion to the insight with which she has judged the need and selected the means by which it has been satisfied. It is because kindergartners recognize this that their interest in curriculummaking is always keen, and it is in this phase of their work that they always welcome help and suggestion.

The organization of a working curriculum for the kindergarten, even a tentative one, has presented unusual difficulties in recent years, because the kindergarten has been in a state of transition from the ideals and methods of the earlier years to those based upon present-day knowledge of the child's development. This larger knowledge shows that many phases of the traditional kindergarten procedure needed modification, and experimentation was therefore begun in the direction in which the work was judged to be in need of improvement. The facts concerning the development of the child's nervous system during the years from four to six, for example, showed that the kindergarten needed to make much more adequate provision for his physical development, and that the activities of the kindergarten did not meet his physical needs. They proved also that the small material in use produced eye and nerve strain, and that if such strain was to be avoided all the material should be greatly enlarged. In consequence new games were devised to meet the newly recognized needs, and balls, blocks, paper, and sticks of increast size came into use.

A better knowledge of the child's modes of thinking than Froebel could have in his day showed other respects in which kindergarten procedure needed improving, and in consequence experimentation in these lines also was undertaken. It showed that children from four to six cannot grasp abstract ideas, as he supposed they could, or those for which they have no basis in their own experience. Applying this idea to the subject-matter of the customary curriculum it was clear that much of this consisted of material for which kindergarten children feel no need, and which they cannot grasp until several years later. It is in recognition of this truth that such topics as the miller, the miner, the lumberman, the story of the Pilgrims, the Indians, Eskimos, and Knights, and many similar ones have been eliminated from the present-day curriculum. The kind of things that have been substituted for these will be shown by the next speaker.

Present-day thought differs from that of Froebel in another respect also, and that is the interpretation of creativeness. Froebel believed children to be creating when they combined elements-lines, surfaces,

and solids-in new ways. The making of series after series of sewingcards, weaving mats, or folding and cutting sheets, each containing a new combination was therefore supposed to develop his originality. The present-day educator develops creativeness, that is, original thinking, by organizing the work so that it presents problems to be solved, and he sees no value in the types of work mentioned, since designs on sewing-cards or weaving mats are in but a slight degree the outgrowth of the child's own thinking. In consequence the old-time "schools" of sewing, weaving, folding, and cutting have no place in the present plans of work.

These are but a few of the changes that have been taking place in the procedure of the kindergarten in recent years, but they will suffice to show the nature of the changes and the reason for making them. The fact that they are being made is important, since it shows that the kindergarten is adjusting itself to present-day thought and conditions, as it must do if it is to form an organic part of the educational system and perform the service which it is capable of performing. The adjustment in question is indeed well on its way. The new methods are well establisht in hundreds of kindergartens and are in process of adoption in as many more. There are still kindergartners who cling to the old forms because they are loath to recognize any authority but that of Froebel. Their slogan is, "Since we bear the Froebelian label we should deliver only Froebelian goods." Those who take this attitude, however, should remember that even the Chinese are awakening to the fact that looking to the past alone is to close the door to the incoming of progress. It is this attitude on the part of kindergartners that is largely responsible for making superintendents wish to change the name. That name when adopted stood for the most radical departure from the educational methods of the period which the history of education has known, and it would be strange indeed if the name which is recognized the world over as the symbol of the new in education should now be discarded because it blocks the path of progress. The principle for which the kindergarten stands-that of education by means of children's activities and interests-will be increasingly recognized, even tho the name should be changed, but the name is still needed to suggest what the character of the beginning should be.

The fact that such changes have been in progress has created many difficulties for the kindergartners in service. They could obtain the new views in fragments only at first, from an address here, or an article there, and found them difficult to put into practice, since the small material could not at once be replaced by the large, and the new forms of apparatus were not easy to obtain. Having but an inadequate insight into the principles that underlie the changes they were at a loss in trying to work out the new methods. If they had followed an establisht procedure they did not know what to do when this procedure was upset. If they wisht to discontinue the method of dictation, for example, knowing that it was